Ag Food and Resource Economics Summer Experiences

Week 7

This week has been slightly slower than most other weeks. I presented my forecast and ship-time documents so most of Tuesday was spent updating and adding additional information to my charts and graphs as we talked about in our meeting.

On Wednesday, I got started on a new User Guide that I am supposed to design and start so that will take a lot of time in the next few weeks. I got access to our order scheduling and Available to Promise (ATP) program that I will be creating the user guide for. The system is really cool because based on incoming shipments from our manufacturers, demand and on-hand supply it can determine an exact date for when the shipment can be shipped from our direct fulfillment site. The system is still in its early stages as it was made from scratch only a few months ago. This program will help make scheduling orders easier, it will make sure that customers get the right delivery date that is reliable based on incoming supply and not just standard lead times.

On Thursday, I had a meeting with one of our project managers who is going to help me automate my forecast file, which I did manually in Excel. We talked about the data analysis system we will be using, SiSense, and how it works kind of like Microsoft Access. SiSense uses queries and data connections, but instead of just returning lines of data, SiSense can return graphs and charts so it is easy to read and understand the data visually. It is also considered a “live data source” in that it updates/refreshes its data automatically when new files are sent. Having a live data stream is extremely beneficial because it gives you the most up to date data so you can make informed decisions based on recent information.